There is a disproportionate amount of respect going towards Disk Jockeys these days and I feel the need to say something about it.
You may have noticed clubs and bars advertising upcoming events starring a DJ, not a band, or a musician, but a DJ. Now a DJ serves one fundamental purpose, playing music. The difference between a good DJ and a bad one falls entirely on how well they understand their respective audience. A good DJ will choose the right songs to incite the crowd; while a bad DJ will fail do this. It’s that simple really, as long as you know your audience disk jockeying is easy.
Many “musicians” have taken the whole disk jockey thing to another level. They mix, scratch, and do a bunch of other things I do not appreciate or understand. I do not understand what they are doing, or the rationale behind ruining on a song.
There are many musicians who use electronics to great effect to create music. VNV Nation, Covenant, and a majority of modern pop music follow a methodology of using computers to laver, organize, and then play various sounds thus creating music. I would dare say that this methodology for creating music resembles producing music much more so than disk jockeying, because that is an obvious observation. Timing is a tricky thing, using a machine to yield perfect timing within a series of multilayer complex sounds is perfectly understandable and interesting. When you look back on the history of music, all music, the great orchestras were accomplishing this same goal only without any of the wonders of modern technology.
If respect is to be divided out fairly, it is obvious the composers of yesteryear and those few who still exist today deserve a sizeable amount more respect than the producers calculating out sounds with machines. I mean no disrespect to the producers of such music, I mention VNV Nation and Covenant earlier out of respect as I enjoy both those groups, however the struggle to write complicated orchestra based music faces the great challenge of human error. A composer of classical stylized music must consider how to recreate all those complex sounds and to organize and time it so the song can be reproduced live by a group of humans. That is a greater challenge, and our respect for Beethoven should always outweigh our respect for any electronic producer.
Having said that, producing electronic music can still be very cool, as the same kind of imagination is necessary to write music, in fact the whole creative side of this comparison should be noted as a draw or equal. It takes equal creativity or brilliance to write good music whether you are preparing a piece for a whole orchestra to play or just a machine. The difference here is choice of tools. Beethoven and his many great colleges used men and women on instruments to create beautiful music; meanwhile “DJ”s uses a machine.
If you read over my opening statement you will see that I am not challenging the respect owed to song writers, I am challenging the overwrought respect we have bestowed to DJs. A disk jockey is someone who plays music, not necessarily someone who writes music. Most disk jockeys have never written a song. These two functions, writing music and playing music, are mutually exclusive; if you create music than you are a producer/song writer; if you play music for others than you are a disk jockey. You can be one or the other, or both, or neither. I am only challenging the respect we give the disk jockey.
Someone recently told me that more people go to see Lady Gaga to hear her DJ than to see her. No; just no. Lady Gaga, despite what anyone might think of her (I think she is a fucking weirdo, and I’m not convinced she is weird in a way I like) has written many songs; she is the producer. Also, when going to a Lady Gaga concert you going to see her perform her songs. It would not surprise me to learn that yet another pop star lip syncs in concert, I believe Lady Gaga is innocent of this, I have seen her sing with her natural voice and I see no reason why she should resort to such silly shallow tactics, however it would not surprise me to learn otherwise, but even if she does lip sync that does not change my point. Given the nature of Lady Gaga’s heavily electronic based music there is little “performing” necessary, all the sounds needed to share Lady Gaga’s music was from a machine, all she needs to do now is have someone play the right songs at the right time so she can sing and dance and do whatever weirdo thing she is going to do along with the song. So when you go to a Lady Gaga concert you are witnessing Lady Gaga singing all her songs. Who the fuck is impressed with the dipshit back stage? Perhaps he works very hard and keeps things organized, but he is in no way a musician for performing this function, that would be like saying the roadies are better musicians than the band they are prepping the stage for because you like the set up. It could be anybody back there; it literally takes little or no creative skill.
Another comment I have heard is that DJs create an ambience for the crowd. They can create the ebbs and flows of the crowd’s moods with music. That’s nice, and probably true of the night club scene but that simply refers me to my original comment about playing the right songs for the right people, at the right times; not a particularly challenging task. This is a skill of extroverted understanding of people more than any calculable quantifiable skill. This is like being a bar tender. Any dumbass can pour drinks, the real purpose of your job is to be charming and likable; that is an intangible skill; as unwarranted for respect as being physically attractive or smelling good. The only skill required of a DJ is to play songs people will like.
We have finally come to the point where I must address this delusion that DJs make songs their own. When disk jockeys scratch and mix songs live, they are not making songs their own for a variety of reasons. First I have never, and I know I never will, hear a mixed song live that sounded half as good as the untouched version. It is almost like the original song had a deliberate song structure for a reason and someone randomly screwing it up and added “bleeps” and “blobs,” is adding NOTHING of value. Second you are not recreating or reimaging a song when you randomly stretch it out, or make it repeat at times; all you are really doing is playing the song strangely. When taking on the challenge of a cover song the option to re-imagine that song becomes present, you can change the structure, the instruments used, the timing, whatever, you can make the song your own. Even if you cover a song and add nothing new to it, you still must recreate the song from scratch. When I play guitar and I am playing other people’s songs (which is about all I can do) I may not be very good at it, but it cannot be denied that I am creating those sounds on my guitar and the vocals are coming from my mouth. So no matter how bad I am be at recreating the song I am covering, I can at least say I am performing the song. A DJ has done nothing to recreate anything. All the original sounds are there at the press of a button. Nothing in his arsenal is truly his, and never is he performing anything. The DJ is not a musician.
A disk jockey does not create or perform music; he is just presses the play button.
Back in the 1920s and 1930s a lot of music critics were furious with current “song writers.” What had become a popular trend at the time was to take old pieces of classical music, most notable Tchaikovsky and the “1812 Overture,” and to cut and rearrange the music in a different manner. These “song writers” even had the audacity to put their names on the final product and claim they had created a new song. You can imagine the anger music critics and Tchaikovsky fans alike felt. This method of “song writing” was little more than plagiarism, and worse than that it was a parade of egoistical glorified incompetence. No one will ever be able to improve upon the “1812 Overture,” the song is pretty much perfect. It takes an incredibly arrogant person to think they could do a better job at structuring Tchaikovsky work better than the man himself, and it takes an even greater fool to attempt to do so by sampling the man’s work without any of the painstaking challenges of recreating the song from scratch, you remember we call that a cover song. When you think about these assholes back in the 1930s claiming to be song writers because they pissed on the great Tchaikovsky, you will realise they were really the DJs of their time, and the horrible things that were being done to good music back then is a problem that has not gone away.
I get the appeal of being a DJ. You want to make a connection with people through music, music you love. You may lack the talent to create and/or perform good music so you branched out in a different way, not unlike myself writing these reviews, the difference is ego. I am under no illusions that what I am doing is some great feat. It has always been easier to criticize than create, that is true of all things, and they often say those who cannot, teach. I cannot be a great musician, it was a great dream but my life took a different path. I accept the humble role of amateur music critic and try to connect with people through music I love in a different way. You wanted to be a great musician but you became a DJ instead, there is nothing wrong with that, but playing songs at someone’s wedding does not make you fucking Daft Punk. And to the rest of us, do not be fooled by the glamorous guise electronic music has created for these tools who press play on the tool that plays music. The true greats of electronic music are producers first and DJs second. The people who are good DJs are the same sort of people who are good bartenders, they are charming and likable, we enjoy their company, we enjoy their tastes in music, but they are not great talents, they are not talented at all.
Keep on Rocking in the free world.
- Colin Kelly
Showing posts with label Essays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Essays. Show all posts
Friday, May 18, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Sara Quin - A Love Letter
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| Image taken from www.charlyncamron.com apparently. |
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| Sara is my kind of girl, a rock star |
Now the average person might look upon this conversation and think we’re idiots because Tegan and Sara are lesbians, so what could we possible hope to accomplish by hitting on them? First of all, I would like to point out an even greater hurdle to overcome; we don’t know them. Thinking you are just going to pick up a rock star is fairly unrealistic, don’t you think? Them being lesbians is irrelevant if we have never met, having said that, yes, them being lesbians does make this far away fantasy rather impossible. I am sure if I ever do meet the lovely Sara Quin I will probably just shower her with very flattering compliments and nothing more. The real problem here is I don’t know Tegan and Sara, and yet it feels like I do.
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| Sara is my kind of girl, Tomboyish but girly. |
As time went on, I couldn’t get Sara Quin out of my head, and I know the exact moment she stormed her way into my heart. Tegan and Sara were doing an interview on Q-Radio for their 2009 album Sainthood, when Sara had a little speech about relationships. She explained how we, as a society, put too much emphasize on relationships in our lives. Society treats people like they have failed in life if you fail in your romantic life, when really one’s life is composed of so much more than just romance. There are our careers, our spiritual well being, our friendships, families, and creative satisfaction that also fill up our lives. Sara Quin went on to explain that she was starting to think she wasn’t made out for romance and love, it just didn’t suit her, and maybe she was destined to be happy alone, but that wasn’t a sad thing, or a failure in any way. She was just a strange animal too unique to truly be compatible with any other person.
Tegan and Sara on QTV talking about Sainthood:
These were sentiments I had been saying to myself for some time, and I could not help but feel a kinship with Sara. I too had failed in love, and I had begun to refuse to believe that made me a failure in life. I had come to realize I was a strange animal too unique for any ordinary person to appreciate. We were alike insofar that both of us had found the strength within to see past society’s silly expectations. It only takes one soul to be one’s self.
In that moment, Sara Quin strung all my heart strings and I knew immediately I loved her. I am twenty-eight years of age and I know full well how foolish my feelings are. This was the first time in my life I had formed a crush on someone I had never met face to face. It was the first time for me that a relationship of fan and artist has grown in this manner. I respect and admire many musicians, some of them lovely women, but never has this admiration grown to something so emotional.
I don’t know Sara Quin, I could be projecting my feelings upon her, I could be reading between the lines of her songs, and her interviews searching for hints to suggest we share more in common than we really do. Was I being unreasonable to think I found someone who was a kindred spirit? Had Sara Quin succeeded so brilliantly in expressing herself she had reached every corner of my iron heart?
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| Sara is bueatiful and utterly unobtainable, the perfect woman. |
Sara Quin sometimes tries to tell a story about her first time falling in love. I say she tries to tell the story as she is often interrupted by her sister Tegan, but I believe I was able to piece together the point of her story. She was in love with someone who was not a lesbian; it was an impossible love, an unrequited love. This event in her youth set a standard she has found difficult to escape. Sara often talks about unrequited love and how it is addictive, well, she’s right, believe me I know, at first I thought it was unlike me to let myself get carried away by a lesbian rock star, but the more I think about the more it completely suits me.
The Quin sisters are very talented, amazing, beautiful people. I do not like them, for that is too mild an emotion, I love them. I love Sara Quin.
Keep on rocking in the free world.
- Colin Kelly
Friday, November 11, 2011
Flash and Substance
There is a mantra I often use to focus when I am writing, “less is more.”
I was reading John W. Campbell’s “Who Goes There?” The book that inspired John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” and the one thing I had to conclude was that it was very badly written. It was a very imaginative story and great idea, but very poorly executed in delivery, not the story itself just the presentation. The entire book was driven by long winded dialogues that explained everything. There was rarely any scene dressing or narration, the book moved forward by conversation, the plot was established by conversation, and things were resolved while people talked to each other thoroughly explaining everything to one another. I do not wish to give a negative impression of “Who Goes There?” it was a very interesting read, and I do not wish to present the idea that John W. Campbell is a bad writer, thought he clearly is, I want to first and foremost declare he had the most important tool, creativity, and though he struggled to share his great ideas with a proper sense of coherency or eloquence, he did share with us a great story nonetheless.
I was able to identify all of Campbell’s mistakes with relative ease because when I look at a lot of my old writings I am guilty of the exact same thing. I never much cared for describing all the little details in the background of every setting or offering up every single character’s life story once introduced, so I often had the characters explain to each other, who they were, where they were, and why there were there. Writing dialogue came easily to me, writing long winded narration did not.
In time I learned that the opposite could be even more damaging to a book, after struggling through Robert Jordan’s first three books in his “Eye of the World,” series, I concluded it was better to allow ham fisted dialogue push a story forward rather than waste hundreds of pages wasting the reader’s time describing the most irrelevant details. Honestly does a writer really expect anyone to remember or care to remember every meal the main characters have ever eaten? For some reason Robert Jordan did.
Writing is easy, good writing is hard.
The same is true for good song writing.
There are some songs that are perfect, like Led Zeppelin - “Stairway to Heaven.” The other day my brother Devin and I were discussion the following lyrics;
“If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run,
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder.”
Devin was surprised that one of his friends did not get the obvious pagan references to the May Queen. He was right to be surprised, even if you lack insight into Celtic culture, you should easily be able to piece together that the May Queen is a spirit or entity that brings forth, you know, spring. I was quick to add that, the hedgerow was a metaphor for the mind. This is less obvious.
“Stairway to Heaven” is a song about rebirth, heaven being the afterlife is just another form of rebirth. How will you enter the next life? What are people willing to do get there in good fortune? Do we try to buy happiness, if not in this life than perhaps in the next? It all ties together, but like anything human there is the human condition to consider. The song is a song of peace, and as Robert Plant once said, “this is a song about hope... I think.” You would think Plant would have deeper insights into his own song, but that is the beauty of Stairway, there is a room for interpretation even for the writer. The second life will come to you, like how spring comes every year, reawakening the beauty of the garden and the harvest, and the same is true for you. If there is a problem in the hedgerow, don’t be alarmed change in coming, is just another way of saying, if you are troubled in mind or spirit, don’t be alarmed change in coming.
Stairway to Heaven is a perfect song it is both descriptive and poetic.
Not every song needs to be lyrically perfect to be good or great. Metallic was never very poetic, but there have many great songs. “One,” a song many would consider to be Metallic’s best, is a very deep song, and not because of fancy word play, but rather the opposite, it is deep by digging deep into our fears with blunt statements.
“Landmine has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in hell”
Without any subtly, or hidden meaning, Metallica states something horrifying and sets it heavily into our hearts. By simply stating the terror Johnny is going through point blank Metallica accomplishes something much more touching then if they had tried to cover it up with elaborate poetry. Simplistic has served Metallica well, and they should be proud of themselves for having the wisdom to be so damned good at song writing.
All of a sudden this conversation is about flash and substance. Lyrically, “Stairway to Heaven,” has both, flash and substance, “One” has heavy substance with little flash, both are great songs, and there are countless other examples we could point to with vary degrees of flash and substance. The important thing to remember is that you can do without flash, but you cannot forgo substance. There are musicians and songs were the lyrics are all flash and no substance.
“Blinded by the silence of a thousand broken hearts.”
That sounds deep doesn’t it? But what does it mean, “blinded by the silence of a thousand broken hearts?” Let’s dissect this line, “blinded by silence” obviously this is not a literal expression, blinded by a lack of sound, that’s not possible, so there must be something so horrible in the silence that it made you not what to ever look upon whatever caused it; maybe? “Silence of a thousand broken hearts?” so I guess we are suppose to infer the that the silence stricken upon us from massive heart break will make us go blind? Is that really deep? Does that really make sense?
The answer is, no.
Green Day is a terrible band. I hate to waste energy focusing on insects like Green Day, but sometimes it is hatred that offers us the best examples of what to avoid and disdain in life. Green Day is an embarrassment to music; they have adopted the worst possible kind of song writing approach, the illusion of poetry.
If you listen to Green Day’s song “Minority,” in its entirety, you can see no connection from their message of desiring to be a “minority,” different or special, and the lyric about being blinded by silence induced from broken hearts. The line is dramatic, it calls for a greater meaning, but when analyzed it is meaningless, and under no given context relatable or even coherent. Green Day’s attempts at poetry are all flash and no substance. It is obvious to anyone who has bother to spare a thought that Green Day only put that line in the song because they thought it sounded “cool,” and like so many false representatives of intelligent before them they have only succeeded in further showcasing their stupidity.
This is the core point I wanted to making is this essay, that a simple lyric is often superior to a complex lyric, this is why Metallica saying something bluntly is so much more meaningful than Green Day saying something fancy.
I’ve listened to a lot of pop music this year, the indie rock scene this year hasn’t given me much to get excited about, and the progressive metal movement seems to be taking the year off, that has left me searching more frantically then previous years to find 2011’s best music. As a result I have listened to a lot of pop music, and there is so much to say about pop music, the corporate corruption, the popular themes of society, and the obvious sex trade influences (that’s an essay in itself), are all things I could ramble on about, but let us look at two popular pop songs from this year, one of them good and one of them bad.
I do not want to call Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts,” a bad song, because all the potential for a decent song is present, unfortunately Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts,” is a bad song. Decent singer, decent song concept, acceptable bass, nice piano, it could have worked, but there is one great short coming in “Jar of Hearts,” the lyrics. There are an infinite number of songs about women telling off their ex-boyfriends, and I am not complaining, it is a very human thing to want to express. But the lyrics in this song... did they hire an eight year old?
“You’re going to catch a cold, form the ice inside your soul.”
Is that supposed to be deep? That is the sort of poem a child writes when they want to impress their grade three English teacher.
“And who do you think you are?
Running around leaving scars.”
This is not even good English; it barely manages to make coherent sense.
Still the song is not completely hapless; there is at least one very powerful lyric;
“Don’t come back for me,
Don’t come back at all.”
This is a powerful lyric, it says a lot. There is conviction in Christina Perri’s voice when she sings this line, and unlike the rest of the chorus, this line actually sounds like something a human being would say. This line seems conversational, like she is actually telling off her ex-boyfriend at this point. You can literally imagine Ms. Perri saying this to someone and it meaning something emotional to both parties. It is by far the most ordinary and simplistic lyric in the entire song, and I am telling you right now that is not a coincidence.
Now for the good song, Adele – “Someone Like you.”
I like Adele and I am quite pleased to see her becoming popular since I do not believe she fits the mould of corporate machine pop star so we know she has earned her fame and success purely off merit of her talents, and what talent, what a voice. I could talk about Adele for an entire music in review, and in fact that is apt to happen sometime in 2012.
“Someone Like you” is similar to “Jar of Hearts,” insofar that it is a song being sang by a woman addressing her ex-boyfriend, however other than that the songs are complete opposites. Adele actually shares a beautiful message of acceptance and well wishing for her ex, and other differences include the primary point that Adele is a legitimate singer with a great song, where as Christina Perri... I’m not sure what her story is, and honestly, I don’t care.
The entire song “Someone Like you,” is very good, both in piano and vocals, but the best line in the entire song is this;
“Never mind.”
That’s it.
You might think that two words, very casual words at that, and cannot possibly be the best lyric for an entire song, especially one that is really good, as I keep claiming, but it is, now let me tell you why.
Every verse is a declaration of how Adele still loves her ex, and even though she still loves him and wants to be with him she can’t, yet she wishes him the very best with his new lover, and then; “never mind, I’ll find someone like you.” She stops her own self torture, and overzealous kindness with those two words “never mind.”
There are a lot of sad songs, and most of them have a silver lining if you look hard enough, some don’t, but all the best ones do. In Adele’s “Someone Like you,” the chorus is the silver lining, she states with strength that she does not need her ex, all she need do is find someone she can love as much as him. It’s beautiful.
Two words that is all it takes sometimes to make a song stand up and confront you with powerful conviction, if you try to flower up your lyrics you end up sounding like a fool who mutated their powerful emotions into a convoluted mess of poor poetry.
Keep on rocking in the free world.
- Colin Kelly
I was reading John W. Campbell’s “Who Goes There?” The book that inspired John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” and the one thing I had to conclude was that it was very badly written. It was a very imaginative story and great idea, but very poorly executed in delivery, not the story itself just the presentation. The entire book was driven by long winded dialogues that explained everything. There was rarely any scene dressing or narration, the book moved forward by conversation, the plot was established by conversation, and things were resolved while people talked to each other thoroughly explaining everything to one another. I do not wish to give a negative impression of “Who Goes There?” it was a very interesting read, and I do not wish to present the idea that John W. Campbell is a bad writer, thought he clearly is, I want to first and foremost declare he had the most important tool, creativity, and though he struggled to share his great ideas with a proper sense of coherency or eloquence, he did share with us a great story nonetheless.
I was able to identify all of Campbell’s mistakes with relative ease because when I look at a lot of my old writings I am guilty of the exact same thing. I never much cared for describing all the little details in the background of every setting or offering up every single character’s life story once introduced, so I often had the characters explain to each other, who they were, where they were, and why there were there. Writing dialogue came easily to me, writing long winded narration did not.
In time I learned that the opposite could be even more damaging to a book, after struggling through Robert Jordan’s first three books in his “Eye of the World,” series, I concluded it was better to allow ham fisted dialogue push a story forward rather than waste hundreds of pages wasting the reader’s time describing the most irrelevant details. Honestly does a writer really expect anyone to remember or care to remember every meal the main characters have ever eaten? For some reason Robert Jordan did.
Writing is easy, good writing is hard.
The same is true for good song writing.
There are some songs that are perfect, like Led Zeppelin - “Stairway to Heaven.” The other day my brother Devin and I were discussion the following lyrics;
“If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run,
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder.”
Devin was surprised that one of his friends did not get the obvious pagan references to the May Queen. He was right to be surprised, even if you lack insight into Celtic culture, you should easily be able to piece together that the May Queen is a spirit or entity that brings forth, you know, spring. I was quick to add that, the hedgerow was a metaphor for the mind. This is less obvious.
“Stairway to Heaven” is a song about rebirth, heaven being the afterlife is just another form of rebirth. How will you enter the next life? What are people willing to do get there in good fortune? Do we try to buy happiness, if not in this life than perhaps in the next? It all ties together, but like anything human there is the human condition to consider. The song is a song of peace, and as Robert Plant once said, “this is a song about hope... I think.” You would think Plant would have deeper insights into his own song, but that is the beauty of Stairway, there is a room for interpretation even for the writer. The second life will come to you, like how spring comes every year, reawakening the beauty of the garden and the harvest, and the same is true for you. If there is a problem in the hedgerow, don’t be alarmed change in coming, is just another way of saying, if you are troubled in mind or spirit, don’t be alarmed change in coming.
Stairway to Heaven is a perfect song it is both descriptive and poetic.
Not every song needs to be lyrically perfect to be good or great. Metallic was never very poetic, but there have many great songs. “One,” a song many would consider to be Metallic’s best, is a very deep song, and not because of fancy word play, but rather the opposite, it is deep by digging deep into our fears with blunt statements.
“Landmine has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in hell”
Without any subtly, or hidden meaning, Metallica states something horrifying and sets it heavily into our hearts. By simply stating the terror Johnny is going through point blank Metallica accomplishes something much more touching then if they had tried to cover it up with elaborate poetry. Simplistic has served Metallica well, and they should be proud of themselves for having the wisdom to be so damned good at song writing.
All of a sudden this conversation is about flash and substance. Lyrically, “Stairway to Heaven,” has both, flash and substance, “One” has heavy substance with little flash, both are great songs, and there are countless other examples we could point to with vary degrees of flash and substance. The important thing to remember is that you can do without flash, but you cannot forgo substance. There are musicians and songs were the lyrics are all flash and no substance.
“Blinded by the silence of a thousand broken hearts.”
That sounds deep doesn’t it? But what does it mean, “blinded by the silence of a thousand broken hearts?” Let’s dissect this line, “blinded by silence” obviously this is not a literal expression, blinded by a lack of sound, that’s not possible, so there must be something so horrible in the silence that it made you not what to ever look upon whatever caused it; maybe? “Silence of a thousand broken hearts?” so I guess we are suppose to infer the that the silence stricken upon us from massive heart break will make us go blind? Is that really deep? Does that really make sense?
The answer is, no.
Green Day is a terrible band. I hate to waste energy focusing on insects like Green Day, but sometimes it is hatred that offers us the best examples of what to avoid and disdain in life. Green Day is an embarrassment to music; they have adopted the worst possible kind of song writing approach, the illusion of poetry.
If you listen to Green Day’s song “Minority,” in its entirety, you can see no connection from their message of desiring to be a “minority,” different or special, and the lyric about being blinded by silence induced from broken hearts. The line is dramatic, it calls for a greater meaning, but when analyzed it is meaningless, and under no given context relatable or even coherent. Green Day’s attempts at poetry are all flash and no substance. It is obvious to anyone who has bother to spare a thought that Green Day only put that line in the song because they thought it sounded “cool,” and like so many false representatives of intelligent before them they have only succeeded in further showcasing their stupidity.
This is the core point I wanted to making is this essay, that a simple lyric is often superior to a complex lyric, this is why Metallica saying something bluntly is so much more meaningful than Green Day saying something fancy.
I’ve listened to a lot of pop music this year, the indie rock scene this year hasn’t given me much to get excited about, and the progressive metal movement seems to be taking the year off, that has left me searching more frantically then previous years to find 2011’s best music. As a result I have listened to a lot of pop music, and there is so much to say about pop music, the corporate corruption, the popular themes of society, and the obvious sex trade influences (that’s an essay in itself), are all things I could ramble on about, but let us look at two popular pop songs from this year, one of them good and one of them bad.
I do not want to call Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts,” a bad song, because all the potential for a decent song is present, unfortunately Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts,” is a bad song. Decent singer, decent song concept, acceptable bass, nice piano, it could have worked, but there is one great short coming in “Jar of Hearts,” the lyrics. There are an infinite number of songs about women telling off their ex-boyfriends, and I am not complaining, it is a very human thing to want to express. But the lyrics in this song... did they hire an eight year old?
“You’re going to catch a cold, form the ice inside your soul.”
Is that supposed to be deep? That is the sort of poem a child writes when they want to impress their grade three English teacher.
“And who do you think you are?
Running around leaving scars.”
This is not even good English; it barely manages to make coherent sense.
Still the song is not completely hapless; there is at least one very powerful lyric;
“Don’t come back for me,
Don’t come back at all.”
This is a powerful lyric, it says a lot. There is conviction in Christina Perri’s voice when she sings this line, and unlike the rest of the chorus, this line actually sounds like something a human being would say. This line seems conversational, like she is actually telling off her ex-boyfriend at this point. You can literally imagine Ms. Perri saying this to someone and it meaning something emotional to both parties. It is by far the most ordinary and simplistic lyric in the entire song, and I am telling you right now that is not a coincidence.
Now for the good song, Adele – “Someone Like you.”
I like Adele and I am quite pleased to see her becoming popular since I do not believe she fits the mould of corporate machine pop star so we know she has earned her fame and success purely off merit of her talents, and what talent, what a voice. I could talk about Adele for an entire music in review, and in fact that is apt to happen sometime in 2012.
“Someone Like you” is similar to “Jar of Hearts,” insofar that it is a song being sang by a woman addressing her ex-boyfriend, however other than that the songs are complete opposites. Adele actually shares a beautiful message of acceptance and well wishing for her ex, and other differences include the primary point that Adele is a legitimate singer with a great song, where as Christina Perri... I’m not sure what her story is, and honestly, I don’t care.
The entire song “Someone Like you,” is very good, both in piano and vocals, but the best line in the entire song is this;
“Never mind.”
That’s it.
You might think that two words, very casual words at that, and cannot possibly be the best lyric for an entire song, especially one that is really good, as I keep claiming, but it is, now let me tell you why.
Every verse is a declaration of how Adele still loves her ex, and even though she still loves him and wants to be with him she can’t, yet she wishes him the very best with his new lover, and then; “never mind, I’ll find someone like you.” She stops her own self torture, and overzealous kindness with those two words “never mind.”
There are a lot of sad songs, and most of them have a silver lining if you look hard enough, some don’t, but all the best ones do. In Adele’s “Someone Like you,” the chorus is the silver lining, she states with strength that she does not need her ex, all she need do is find someone she can love as much as him. It’s beautiful.
Two words that is all it takes sometimes to make a song stand up and confront you with powerful conviction, if you try to flower up your lyrics you end up sounding like a fool who mutated their powerful emotions into a convoluted mess of poor poetry.
Keep on rocking in the free world.
- Colin Kelly
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Don't Let Other People Ruin It For You
There are many random music downloads and purchases I have committed myself to over the years. Many years ago I used to do it when I wanted to hear something new so I would search something vague like “classic rock,” and search until I found something I did not recognize. Now of days I am more systematic about my approach. Now of days I publish an amateur music critic blog. Now of days it is a job.
In an effort to be open minded, and current, I often browse other music critics’ sites and see what they have posted as the best songs of the year. It is always an interesting experience. Some sites post the top 40, as they appeared over the course of the year, so an abundance of pop songs are present there. Some sites are very hip-hop and dance oriented, and despite my best efforts I still struggle to appreciate hip-hop. Many sites are published by people like me who are trying to find hidden gems and share them with the world and most critics like that love the underground. Any song you have not heard of is awesome, this is their mantra.
This is good and bad.
It is good because it exposes me to a lot of music I would not have heard otherwise, and while it sometimes surprises me just how much mediocre (and ultimately boring) indie rock music is out there, I always find a few songs I really enjoy, and this opens the doors for finding more music in the future. This is now I discovered bands like Frightened Rabbit and Cloud Cult. Just the other day I heard the song “Shell Games,” and I was rather impressed, so when I looked up the artist and found it was Bright Eyes, I stopped for a second, and thought “wait isn’t he THE emo pussy,” not A emo pussy, THE emo pussy. Well... he won me over for this song.
It is also bad, not so much for me, but for the person publishing these kinds of articles. Perhaps it is not my place to judge, but it is very much in my nature to psychoanalyze everyone and everything, and when I see someone’s list of songs they love and it is all indie rock songs, I think to myself “this guy would also love bands like; Bloq Party, Arcade Fire, Kings of Leon, and Mumford and Son.” Alas you will rarely or never see bands like those on their lists and for one reason only those bands are all commercially successful.
There is a saying I have when talking about music, “don’t let other people ruin it for you.”
I love the Arcade Fire, I would probably go to war for them if it came to that, but when I start to ramble about them to some of my friends, they like to point out that, “they have a lot of fans who are hipster douche bags.” My friends are of course correct; Arcade Fire does have a lot of pretentious fans, but their reasons, good or bad, for liking Arcade Fire does not change the reasons I love them. Artsy pretentious douche bags are not going to ruin Arcade Fire for me.
I see this long standing trend for what it really is.
The conformist to the top 40 will always use the argument to defend the music they listen too by saying, “look at all the money they are making,” which is another way of saying, “they must be good, they are popular.” Flawed logic if there ever was any, the power of persuasion in the music industry has been refined to capture the maximum number of minds possible, or to quote my beloved Uriah Heep, “There is no strength in numbers, have no such misconceptions.”
However the anti-conformist-conformist of the top 40, whether they be punks, indie, or metal fans, often use the opposite argument “these guys are doing their own thing, they’re special.” This of course is just another way of saying, “no one knows about these guys so they are special to me.” This is a fair sentiment. I feel like I am partially responsible for the success of Avantasia in Canada (limited though it is) since I was the first person to parade for them in Calgary, and I am fairly certain I am the very first person to make such a big deal about them in this city, and because of this, it feels like Avanatasia is my band. But just because a band is unknown that does not mean they are good, sometimes bands remain in perpetual obscurity because they are not very good or interesting; in fact that is exactly the case most of the time. Having said that, there are lots of songs out there worth searching for, that’s what the anti-conformist-conformist are looking for. That’s why I started the music in review.
You may hate the top 40, but if a song stands out to you, and it crawls its way onto the charts are you going to disown it because of your hatred of the corrupt music industry?
You may hate hipsters and their ilk, but if you happen to agree with them on a certain band are you going to disown them just so you can continue to distance yourself from that social demographic?
If you disown music for any reason influenced by others you are being shallow and worse than that you are being dishonest to your own feelings. When a musician writes a song they hope to reach other people, make a connection with them, be it in the form of shared feelings or experiences, or simply to share the beauty or sorrow of sweet sweeping sounds that we call music. Are you willing to deny your heart the embrace of such a thing for something as useless as petty prejudice?
I don’t scour the top 40 as much as I used to, and that is only because I do not watch as much TV as I used to, and honestly I would watch MuchMusic a lot more if they played the countdown more often. Even when I hated nearly every song on the top 40 I would enjoy watching it, for no other reason than curiosity. I was curious what other people heard in these songs to make them love it so. I know often times it is the corporate machine playing tricks on people, but other times these songs must have struck emotions I have either for longed or forgotten, and this last point, this is where the real curiosity comes from, what are you feeling that I am missing? What emotions, what connections, do people form with these songs? Perhaps there is beauty here my ears are missing.
The same holds true for my browsing of other music critics, I want to hear what they say, and understand what they feel. But the primary motivation of some music critics is sometimes obscured, these critics want to be the first to discover a band, and be able to parade their findings to the world, and sometimes I know they are looking too hard. They accept things not because they are good but only because they not popular. It is a tricky tightrope to walk being an anti-conformist-conformist, hypocrisy waits around every corner. You hate the conformed but you yourself have conformed to the opposite, and now tragically you are no better. These are the people who assume everyone is going to agree with them for every song, because they see themselves are purveyors of true music, not remembering that there will always been a level of subjective feelings in anything we call art.
So what is the solution? The ripe old cliché “be yourself.”
Don’t care what the top 40 says, or what the hipsters say, find music you like and don’t let anyone ruin it for you. This is the biggest reason I won’t review music I do not like, I do not want to rain on anyone else’s parade, I only want to share with you the reasons I love, not the reasons I hate. If I tell you why I hate something you love, you may begin to hate the things I love in an involuntary human emotional reaction, and then we lose common ground, and we may begin to lose each other.
No one loves the Music in Review in its entirety, of course you don’t; you are not me. You do not feel everything I feel. You will never hear, or see, or feel, all the things I do, and I only hope you are open minded enough to at least see my perspective, and sometimes let yourself enjoy a song I recommend, and take the chance to hear, and feel the same things I do.
I hope for nothing more than that.
Keep on rocking in the free world.
- Colin Kelly
In an effort to be open minded, and current, I often browse other music critics’ sites and see what they have posted as the best songs of the year. It is always an interesting experience. Some sites post the top 40, as they appeared over the course of the year, so an abundance of pop songs are present there. Some sites are very hip-hop and dance oriented, and despite my best efforts I still struggle to appreciate hip-hop. Many sites are published by people like me who are trying to find hidden gems and share them with the world and most critics like that love the underground. Any song you have not heard of is awesome, this is their mantra.
This is good and bad.
It is good because it exposes me to a lot of music I would not have heard otherwise, and while it sometimes surprises me just how much mediocre (and ultimately boring) indie rock music is out there, I always find a few songs I really enjoy, and this opens the doors for finding more music in the future. This is now I discovered bands like Frightened Rabbit and Cloud Cult. Just the other day I heard the song “Shell Games,” and I was rather impressed, so when I looked up the artist and found it was Bright Eyes, I stopped for a second, and thought “wait isn’t he THE emo pussy,” not A emo pussy, THE emo pussy. Well... he won me over for this song.
It is also bad, not so much for me, but for the person publishing these kinds of articles. Perhaps it is not my place to judge, but it is very much in my nature to psychoanalyze everyone and everything, and when I see someone’s list of songs they love and it is all indie rock songs, I think to myself “this guy would also love bands like; Bloq Party, Arcade Fire, Kings of Leon, and Mumford and Son.” Alas you will rarely or never see bands like those on their lists and for one reason only those bands are all commercially successful.
There is a saying I have when talking about music, “don’t let other people ruin it for you.”
I love the Arcade Fire, I would probably go to war for them if it came to that, but when I start to ramble about them to some of my friends, they like to point out that, “they have a lot of fans who are hipster douche bags.” My friends are of course correct; Arcade Fire does have a lot of pretentious fans, but their reasons, good or bad, for liking Arcade Fire does not change the reasons I love them. Artsy pretentious douche bags are not going to ruin Arcade Fire for me.
I see this long standing trend for what it really is.
The conformist to the top 40 will always use the argument to defend the music they listen too by saying, “look at all the money they are making,” which is another way of saying, “they must be good, they are popular.” Flawed logic if there ever was any, the power of persuasion in the music industry has been refined to capture the maximum number of minds possible, or to quote my beloved Uriah Heep, “There is no strength in numbers, have no such misconceptions.”
However the anti-conformist-conformist of the top 40, whether they be punks, indie, or metal fans, often use the opposite argument “these guys are doing their own thing, they’re special.” This of course is just another way of saying, “no one knows about these guys so they are special to me.” This is a fair sentiment. I feel like I am partially responsible for the success of Avantasia in Canada (limited though it is) since I was the first person to parade for them in Calgary, and I am fairly certain I am the very first person to make such a big deal about them in this city, and because of this, it feels like Avanatasia is my band. But just because a band is unknown that does not mean they are good, sometimes bands remain in perpetual obscurity because they are not very good or interesting; in fact that is exactly the case most of the time. Having said that, there are lots of songs out there worth searching for, that’s what the anti-conformist-conformist are looking for. That’s why I started the music in review.
You may hate the top 40, but if a song stands out to you, and it crawls its way onto the charts are you going to disown it because of your hatred of the corrupt music industry?
You may hate hipsters and their ilk, but if you happen to agree with them on a certain band are you going to disown them just so you can continue to distance yourself from that social demographic?
If you disown music for any reason influenced by others you are being shallow and worse than that you are being dishonest to your own feelings. When a musician writes a song they hope to reach other people, make a connection with them, be it in the form of shared feelings or experiences, or simply to share the beauty or sorrow of sweet sweeping sounds that we call music. Are you willing to deny your heart the embrace of such a thing for something as useless as petty prejudice?
I don’t scour the top 40 as much as I used to, and that is only because I do not watch as much TV as I used to, and honestly I would watch MuchMusic a lot more if they played the countdown more often. Even when I hated nearly every song on the top 40 I would enjoy watching it, for no other reason than curiosity. I was curious what other people heard in these songs to make them love it so. I know often times it is the corporate machine playing tricks on people, but other times these songs must have struck emotions I have either for longed or forgotten, and this last point, this is where the real curiosity comes from, what are you feeling that I am missing? What emotions, what connections, do people form with these songs? Perhaps there is beauty here my ears are missing.
The same holds true for my browsing of other music critics, I want to hear what they say, and understand what they feel. But the primary motivation of some music critics is sometimes obscured, these critics want to be the first to discover a band, and be able to parade their findings to the world, and sometimes I know they are looking too hard. They accept things not because they are good but only because they not popular. It is a tricky tightrope to walk being an anti-conformist-conformist, hypocrisy waits around every corner. You hate the conformed but you yourself have conformed to the opposite, and now tragically you are no better. These are the people who assume everyone is going to agree with them for every song, because they see themselves are purveyors of true music, not remembering that there will always been a level of subjective feelings in anything we call art.
So what is the solution? The ripe old cliché “be yourself.”
Don’t care what the top 40 says, or what the hipsters say, find music you like and don’t let anyone ruin it for you. This is the biggest reason I won’t review music I do not like, I do not want to rain on anyone else’s parade, I only want to share with you the reasons I love, not the reasons I hate. If I tell you why I hate something you love, you may begin to hate the things I love in an involuntary human emotional reaction, and then we lose common ground, and we may begin to lose each other.
No one loves the Music in Review in its entirety, of course you don’t; you are not me. You do not feel everything I feel. You will never hear, or see, or feel, all the things I do, and I only hope you are open minded enough to at least see my perspective, and sometimes let yourself enjoy a song I recommend, and take the chance to hear, and feel the same things I do.
I hope for nothing more than that.
Keep on rocking in the free world.
- Colin Kelly
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